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Friday, January 20, 2017

Fire-heart

Hi,

I wondered what to write about today. The week, has... been less than ideal. The feelings - nay, personal feelings, of powerlessness. Trump in the White House and May at the helm. Both seemingly decided on their own personal vision, come hell of high water. Oo, time for a dark joke: they may well get high-water if they ignore the climate science. So long, Florida! ;-)

This week gone I've been ignored the news. Just listening to music or comedy podcasts. I did not want to hear yet more blow-hard, empty rhetoric from our Great Leaders.

I had toyed with the idea of not posting anything. Some might say, "so what's new?" :-) Then, posting a picture of a black flag, or even the rainbow flag. But, no. I'm.... I'm too f**king angry. Angry at the leaders who don't listen, who deride evidence. Angry at our excuse for an opposition party and angry at those dumb enough - yes, I'm calling those who fell for populist drivel dumb - to fall for the lies. Evidence, MF! Evidence!!

Remember when your parents said, If something's too good to be true, it probably isn't true? Well, I guess a few folk are about to learn a very harsh lesson. Sad thing is, they may well drag a number of people down with them.

But...

I'm not going to sit here and let them. For what good it will do, I don't know. I will argue. I will debate. I will write. I will deny those who seek to push us back. I will not let bigots and fools take away the rights that we fought for. I will keep my quiet rage and I will not forget nor forgive. I will accept those who want help or who want to change. I will keep our community alive. I will educate my children that they can be who they want, love who they want and do what they want. Your lies will not shackle. We are one people. One race. One planet. We will not go quietly into the night, nor can we be 'cured' with your quack therapies... Hint: there's nothing wrong with us. Hate is what's wrong, not us.

Good luck everyone.*

Lynn

x

[ * UK readers of a certain age may wish to think of Blackadder saying that, after blowing a whistle '-) ]

Argh, I know how you're feeling - things are just as bad here Down Under right now! During the last few months, the current pack of incompetents a (slim) majority of the Australian population was stupid enough to vote back into power last July have been doing their seeming best to be just as heartless and crazy as the conservatives in your part of the world, as well as the US. Among other things:

1. We had one of our more unhinged politicians praise the current president of the Philippines for deciding that the best way to deal with the problem of illicit drug use in his country is to simply send out death squads to murder anyone suspected of using or dealing in illegal drugs. The politician in question seemed to think that was an approach we should emulate here, since obviously we need to get really tough on drugs (seeing as that approach has worked so well so far!).

2. We had another conservative politician exhort Australians to engage in a "pro-Christmas uprising", to take the festival back from all those evil unbelievers saying, "Happy holidays" (or somesuch twaddle). "Really?" I remember thinking when I heard that particularly balmy utterance. "We've got all these problems here right now, and that's the hill you want us all to die on?!" (Ironically, said politician's party once tried to implement a horrible, horrible industrial relations program that would've given the average Australian worker about as many rights as someone in a Charles Dickens novel, and would, among other terrible things, have made Christmas just another working day for most people, with no extra pay or anything else to compensate them for having to come into the office on that day of the year!)

3. Some other genius in government decided that we need to seriously consider banning the $100 note, and gradually phase out cash altogether (because obviously only criminals, terrorists and other undesirable types who don't want the government being able to monitor their every financial transaction would want to use cash. If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear!).

4. Without a doubt, though, the absolute WORST thing our government is currently doing is sending letters demanding extortionate amounts of money to anyone who's had the misfortune to rely on welfare in the last decade or so. What's basically been happening here is that they've implemented some whiz-bang new computer program that goes through the records of people who've received welfare payments, completely miscalculates how much they should have gotten, and then demands they "repay" (often outrageous) debts that the vast majority of them legally don't owe. What makes it even worse is that it's rumoured the government knew all along most of the debts the aforementioned program would generate would be spurious, but just don't care. After all, it's only the poor, for the most part, who are being slugged with these bogus "debts", and who cares about them? Thankfully, though, they're getting some real pushback on this issue, which isn't going away quietly, as I'm sure they were hoping it would! I hope it costs them the next election - I'm thoroughly sick of them. They're just another bunch of flint-hearted conservatives who only care about the rich (and to hell with the rest of us!); they can all go die in a fire for all I care! Ahem, yes. Rant over!

We will not go quietly into the night, nor can we be 'cured' with your quack therapies...

Do you have many people in the UK pushing this sort of thing: so-called "reparative therapy"? We have a few here, though they're nowhere near as vocal or numerous as their counterparts in, say, the US. A lot of them are affiliated with so-called "pro-family" groups (who seem, more often than not, to have a rather warped perspective on what constitutes "family values"); indeed, a spokeswoman for one such group seems to get a disturbing amount of media exposure here. For example, just a week or two ago, she was quoted in the local rag giving her opinions on a recent State Government proposal to enact certain policies that'd make things a little easier for transgender school students here (one bit of good news!); not surprisingly, she was dead against the policies in question. Funnily enough, the last time I looked at their website, the organization she represents was still promoting the works of "ex-gay" therapists who have long since been exposed as frauds (in many cases because they were caught in compromising situations with other men), so I don't think they have much credibility!

There are a few folk who push the 'we can cure you' quackery. They pop up from time to time in the press, and while the more - shall we say - 'less liberal minded' - papers give lip service to exposing the fraud, the better broadsheets don't go for 'media balance'. Instead, they lay out how dangerous such therapies are and the evidence disproving them.

As to pro-family: maybe you should love your kids as they are. Hell, they might grow up feeling loved, protected and confident in being all of themselves. ❤

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About Me

I'm a 40 something trans person from the UK. I'm happily married and with two kiddie-winks, life's interesting!
I live the quiet life (so don't be expecting fireworks or hot babe pix).
Beyond the mashed up gender identity, I like reading (mainly science fiction), the odd bit of writing and pondering life's little turns.